


The Brightest Lights Cast the Deepest Shadows

by NeitherNora



Category: Destiny (Video Game)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Fall of the Last City, Pre-Red War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-15
Updated: 2017-09-15
Packaged: 2018-12-30 03:50:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12100080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeitherNora/pseuds/NeitherNora
Summary: Too late, she saw them coming.





	The Brightest Lights Cast the Deepest Shadows

Eris Morn hurried down the corridor as the Tower shook. Red Legion. She'd seen them before, seen their threads in a greater tapestry. But her vision was clouded now. Too much death, too much chaos. If only she could stop and think--concentrate for even a moment!

The chatter of the comms buzzed incessantly. Zavala was mounting a defense of the Tower. Ikara was seeking the Speaker. Cayde...who knew where Cayde was. Eris had more important things to worry about, like getting out alive.

The whispers warned her a moment late, and she found herself falling as a Cabal drop pod tore through the wall and turning her corridor into a slide. She landed hard, rolling across the ground in a daze.

Well, at least she was at ground level. She stood slowly, checking herself for injuries and thankfully finding none save what would soon be a very colorful bruise on her hip.

The streets were on fire. The Red Legion was not well known for taking prisoners, and Eris could feel death in the air around her. She read it in the smoke and heard it in the whispers. She didn't know what she was going to do, but she knew that she could not risk the Cabal getting their hands on what she held.

Even without her connection to the Traveler, she knew something was wrong. It was then that she passed a dead Guardian. His neck was broken where he'd fallen, and his ghost lay just as dead beside him. She knelt to touch the ghost, and realized what the device shed seen could do.

Dominus Ghaul sought to steal the Traveler's Light.

She hurried along again, breath catching in her chest. She didn't know how long she ran, but the blasted and torn streets were no easy path. Just as she saw the wall stretching above the canopy of wrecked and ruined homes, they found her.

The Cabal strutted down the street, searching for mortals and Guardians. She could almost taste their joy as they vaporized a wounded Guardian, whose leg lay somewhere apart from them. The Centurian turned, saw her, then called out to its fellows. At the sound of their deep, raspy voices she heard the whispers once more, translating.

"Guardian," they called. "Paladin of the Dead God!"

She stopped, drew herself up to her full height. Disgust twisted her lips and she spat on the ruined ground.

"Let me pass, or face your own ruination," she said.

"Lightless whelp!" The Centurian and its cadre sauntered closer, confidence wafting like the smoke that filled the air. "You would have us cower before a snuffed candle?"

Eris reached inside--deep, deep inside, to the shadows in her heart. Green energy began to swirl around her, whipping up her cloak and sending pebbles scattering.

"Ignorance," she said, voice turning raspy. The light seemed to dim, as if a cloud were passing over the sun.

"I've been Lightless for years. There are other forms of power."


End file.
